Notes on a shootaround: Manu ready for bench return

SAN ANTONIO — Lest Manu Ginobili’s ailing hamstring cool off in his usual role as a reserve, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich elected to start the veteran guard on Monday in his return from a two-game absence.

Ginobili will almost certainly be back to his customary job as the second unit’s floor general in the near future — perhaps as soon as tonight at home against Utah — and he can’t wait.

“In so many years I got used to it,” said Ginobili, who has come off the bench for roughly 54 percent of his 762 regular season games with the Spurs. “I’m just more used to playing with the second unit, playing at a different pace. Not that I don’t like starting, don’t get me wrong, but I feel very comfortable in that job and I feel like it is my job.

“(Popovich) knows. I’m not going to tell him I don’t want to start. But he knows as soon as he feels I’m ready to go back to the bench, he’ll do it. I started the other day and I still played 24, 25 minutes. So it doesn’t change much.”

Ginobili is averaging 12.5 points and 4.6 assists while shooting nearly 47 percent in his 12th season with the Spurs. With Danny Green slated to miss up to a month with a broken bone in his left hand, he said he and Marco Belinelli are expecting to fill most of those minutes with spot help from Cory Joseph.

“Now we’re going to have to figure out with Marco who is going to start, who is going to stay on the second unit to run those plays,” he said. “So it’s going to take a little bit of an adjustment.

“I think Pop is worried about my hamstring; he wants me to be warm when I play. But Marco was starting before, so I picture that changing very soon. But besides that, we’re both going to have to play a few more minutes. Cory’s going to play a little bit at (shooting guard), and life goes on.”

Young guns: Even with starting small forward Gordon Hayward (hip) listed as doubtful for tonight’s game, the Jazz still present problems with a pair of talented young guards in Alec Burks and Trey Burke. Burks scored 34 points in Utah’s most recent outing, a 15-point conquest of Denver, while Burke is one of the few rookies from the Class of 2013 that is panning out so far with 13.5 points and 5.4 assists per game.

“Even without (Hayward), they’re a dangerous group — young, athletic,” Ginobili said. “(Burks) is not a shooter, but he can really get to the rim. He’s very explosive, good in transition. Their point guard really got us in trouble in (the last meeting). He has a great mid-range shot, a good pick and roll player. So they really have potential.”

Signs of improvement: The Spurs could be digging out of their recent defensive swoon, holding their last five opponents — the Clippers, Memphis, Dallas, Minnesota and New Orleans — to 96.4 points per 100 possessions and 42.8 percent shooting.

“We feel better because we’ve done better in the last three or four games,” Ginobili said. “We started well, then we went down and now we are getting back. We just have to keep working at it, because if we want to make it to June we have to be more reliable in that aspect.”